Anyone familiar with buying oak barrels for alcohol or beer?

This is a discussion on Anyone familiar with buying oak barrels for alcohol or beer? within the Food, Wine, & Spirits Forum forums, part of the Non Cigar Related Specialty Forums category; Hey, I know there are home brewers in here and I got a kit for a gift and was looking ...

Anyone familiar with buying oak barrels for alcohol or beer?

Hey, I know there are home brewers in here and I got a kit for a gift and was looking at starting. First though, I have found some charred oak barrels on the internet that people buy and further age whiskeys or what-not. I'd like to age some white lighting and see how it turns out. Then, I would like to use the bourbon barrel to age some type of beer in (dark ale prob). If anyone has done anything like this before, I'd like to here you experience and wisdom. Thanks

Re: Anyone familiar with buying oak barrels for alcohol or beer?

Buying a barrel is certainly an option. I'd recommend going with the 1 or 5gal options. If you age white lightning in a barrel its basically whisky. A good beer to age in one would be a stout or a winter warmer, maybe even a scotch ale or old ale. Though what's a much cheaper option is buying oak chips, sold at most homebrew shops, and them soaking the chips in whisky then putting them in the fermenter to let the beer age on the chips. You can also buy different grades of toasted chips... Ex: dark toast or light toast. If you don't have a brew shop near you online vendors like Austin Homebrew should have them. FWIW your not limited to oak either. I've made an IPA aged on Spanish cedar from cigar boxes.

Because there is more surface area of oak touching the beer when using chips, it will imparts its character on the beer much faster.

Re: Anyone familiar with buying oak barrels for alcohol or beer?

Re: Anyone familiar with buying oak barrels for alcohol or beer?

Thanks for the info guys. I actually forgot I started a thread about this lol. The chips are a good idea. I figured I would put some port in to condition the barrel, then get some white lightning (some fam in Kentucky get it) and age it in the post port barrel (I like Irish or Scotch done this way). I just started brewing beer and thought a good, bourbon cask ale would be pretty cool to make and a good way to further use the barrel after the whisky.